ISSUE #76: Religion and God: The two biggest bullshit stories ever told.
Let's not be a slave to a god that doesn't exist.
What’s the similarity between a kid and a man? Both are illusioned. One believes Santa is real, and the other believes God is real.
The conception of religion and God needs no introduction. Every human being, who has spent a few years living on this planet, is familiar with these concepts and, not surprisingly, the vast majority of them are submitted to one particular religion and worship one kind of God.
I know that when you refute the age-old belief like God, you are bound to be criticized. People will smear you, abuse you, and may even declare you a mindless person. So, in order to defend yourself, you ought to have a lot of understanding of the subject, you ought to develop the arguments that are impossible to refute, and you ought to study a lot. Therefore, I studied Karl Marx, Lenin, Bakunin, and Bhagat Singh - all of whom were atheists - and concluded that there is no such thing as God and that religion is a tool for mind control of the masses, which we will discuss later in this essay.
Our societies are designed in such a way that it’s almost impossible to look through the religious fog and anyone who dares to question the validity of religion and God is considered an arrogant and a close-minded person. First, it’s important to understand that my rejection of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God is not because I am egoistic or a close-minded being. In fact, an arrogant and close-minded person can never be an atheist. Yes, that’s true. But how?
When an arrogant person denies the existence of God, he either considers himself to be in the possession of Godly powers, OR he regards himself to be a God. In both scenarios, he is not a true atheist. Whereas in my case, I totally reject the presence of any God whatsoever and I do NOT consider myself to be God. I think of myself as nothing more than a human being who believes that questioning and challenging the status quo is imperative for human progress.
Similarly, a close-minded person can never be an atheist because you have to be open-minded to be so. Confused? Let me explain it simply. I asked Google, “What’s the definition of close-mindedness?” He replied: When someone shows reluctance towards considering different ideas/opinions. Ask yourself, who’s close-minded among the following two?: A religious person who can’t tolerate the outright rejection of religion/God OR an atheist who stopped believing in God after thinking deep and long on the matter. From another perspective, I used to believe in God and identified myself as a Sikh for the last 21 years of my life, I used to chant religious mantras for hours both in the morning and in the evening. I want to ask you the following: Was it my open-mindedness or close-mindedness that led me to this conclusion? Of course, it was because of my open-mindedness because if I was close-minded, I would have straight-up rejected atheism. But the single fact that I researched atheism, listened to many arguments, thought about them, and then decided to change my 21-year-old belief system regarding God tells you what I’m trying to say, which is that a true atheist can never be close-minded.
Now that I have probably cleared your doubts regarding atheists being arrogant and close-minded, let’s ado further.
Believe me or not, religion has actually convinced people that an invisible man is keeping an eye on them, who lives in the sky, who controls everything, who knows everything, who can do anything he wants, who loves everyone, etc. We are told that there are certain things that God doesn’t want us to do and if we do any of them, he will throw us in a boiling oil where we will be tortured till the end of time. Simply, if you disobey his rules, he will punish you. Doesn’t that sound like dictatorship? Can it be said that God is a dictator or that the dictators are trained by God? Because there is absolutely no difference between how God and a dictator treat anyone who dissents. Therefore, the belief that God is “a loving force” that loves everyone is a complete myth.
The longer you live on this planet, the more you realize that something is wrong with the world. War, poverty, crimes, torture, corruption, disease, hunger, etc. are all a part of the world designed by the so-called perfect God. If this is the world he could create, he is the worst, let alone perfect, at his business. Now, I want you to close your eyes and try imagining the perfect world. What came to your mind? A world where there is no war, no poverty, no corruption, no inequality, no hunger, right? If you can imagine what the perfect world would look like, how come the all-knowing, all-powerful God can’t? You may argue that all of these are a result of human greed, which I agree 100% with. Then tell me Mr. religious robot, if your God can create the entire universe, can’t he create humans without greed, which would solve so many problems plaguing our world today?
As someone rightly said, “The philosophies of religion and God are a result of human weakness and the limitation of human knowledge.”
People say that God created humans, but it’s the other way around; humans created the illusion of God. Our ancestors had the great opportunity to explain the mysteries of this world using Reason as a base to answer as many unsolved mysteries as possible. But, knowing how lethargic and idle the human race is, everyone tried to answer the mysteries of this world, its past, and its present in his own theoretical way without any direct proof, which resulted in wide ideological differences among people, which gave a pathway to the formation of different religions and Gods. During the ancient times, when there was no science and the humans were trying to make sense of this weird world - where the shining reddish-yellow ball falls to create darkness and rises to bring light to the world, where sometimes the water droplets start dropping from the sky, where the seed sown into the ground becomes a plant/tree - everyone put forward their theories to explain these kinds of mysteries. Everyone believed their version of the theory to be true, which led to the formation of different communities with different Gods. Anything that humans can’t explain is said to be caused by an infinite, omnipotent God. For example, ancient Hindu texts tell people that the deity Indra causes rain to show his displeasure, but thanks to the advancements made in the meteorological science that we now have concrete evidence that rain is totally a natural phenomenon, not a signal of any God’s annoyance.
You might say if it wasn’t God who created humans, mountains, rivers, animals, Earth, the Universe, etc. what else could it be? The beginning of the Universe and the formation of Earth has been explained by The Big Bang Theory, and how life started on our planet has been elegantly explained by Charles Darwin in the 19th century with his theory of evolution, he explained how every life on Earth came into being. It is true that science doesn’t have the answer to all of the unsolved mysteries of this world, but it is also true that inventing a supernatural, divine power to explain those mysteries is foolishness. It doesn’t add to human progress.
As Richard Feynman famously quoted, “I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.”
The whole point of religion is to disempower the masses and snatch away from them the power of Reason, which is fundamental to human progress. Let’s discuss them one by one.
Religion makes people believe that God is everything and man is nothing; it’s just a statue made of clay. The moment a child is born, our society starts telling him that there is something called God that is an omnipotent reality and you have to worship him and pray to him every day if you want to succeed in life. As a result, when the child grows and finds himself in difficult circumstances, instead of facing the reality of life with courage and bravery, he starts praying believing that God will somehow protect him. This does nothing other than lowering his self-confidence and provide him with a way to escape reality. Karl Marx was right when he said, “Religion is the opium of the people,” which means religion serves the same purpose as opium. People take opium, which dulls their senses, to find illusory happiness in a life that’s filled with suffering and pain; therefore, in this sense, religion is a spiritual drug that gives people false hope and a way to create an illusionary world that’s far different from reality.
Religion provides you with some beliefs that you are bound to accept, whether you agree with them or not. Religion has gone above criticism, you have to take everything that religion teaches you as a fact, you can’t question the efficacy of any of those beliefs, and if you dare to do so, you will be vigorously attacked by society. It forces the masses to accept the old beliefs without questioning and become a part of the rat race where everyone is trying to win the favor of Almighty, omnipresent God. Religious preachers tell us that God will get angry if we question anything written in the religious scriptures and human progress will be stalled, which is quite the opposite of what’s true. Rational thinking that’s based on logic is what we need for the development of humanity, not religious thinking that’s based on mental slavery. We need a generation that knows how to question the old beliefs with conviction, because blind belief in anything is dangerous, and it only takes humanity backward not forward.
“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.” - Napoleon
As noted earlier, religion is a spiritual drug that convinces people to accept the way their life is. Many people believe that everything that happens in the world or in their life, happens according to the will of God and they are meant to accept it because “God does everything for the greater good.” Let’s see how valid and legit this argument is.
In this world - where, as the saying goes, not even a leaf moves without God’s consent - millions have been killed by wars, tens of millions of people lost their homes and turned into refugees, thousands die of hunger every day, almost 10% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty, a white nation enslaves black/brown nation and loots its resources for hundreds of years, rich nations throw their surplus in the sea instead of distributing it to the poor and needy, the war criminals are roaming freely while the ones who take a stand against the authority are thrown into prison cells. All of this is a reality. How can you look at all this and say, “All is well in God’s kingdom”? What’s good in any of the above?
If your God is an all-powerful, all-knowing, infinite reality, why isn’t he doing anything to remove all the suffering and pain from this world? There are two possible answers to this:
He is not doing anything because he can’t do anything i.e. he doesn’t have the powers to bring any change in the world OR he doesn’t know about the suffering of people. This means, by definition, he is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, and therefore, not a God. So wake up, and stop worshipping a man who does nothing to solve real-world problems, but keeps demanding money and attention from you.
He is not doing anything deliberately because he gets pleasure out of the suffering of people; he loves seeing children die of hunger; he loves seeing countries destroyed by war; he loves seeing the exploitation of man by man; he loves seeing the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer; he loves seeing the injustice in this world. If this is your God, how is he any different from Genghis Khan? Genghis Khan killed a few thousand people to seek pleasure and the world knows how tyrant he was. We hate his very name because he killed thousands of innocent people just to feel good. How would you justify worshipping God that kills millions, not thousands, every year just to seek pleasure?
I know what you might argue now. You might say that God puts us in suffering so that we can learn how to handle pain and emerge as better people, and if you suffer now, you will be sent to heaven and an evildoer will be tortured in hell? Let me ask you, do you have any proof, any solid evidence that can validate what you are saying? For the sake of argument, if your God really punishes an evildoer either during or after his lifetime, why do we need to have a justice system, the laws, the constitution, etc.? How far would you try to justify a person who beats you and inflicts injuries over your body on a regular basis only to apply ointment and bandage on your wounds later?
There are, in total, 4200 religions in this world. If there is one God, why do we need so many freaking religions to connect to him? Why don’t we all converge on one religion? I know why. Because every religion thinks their version is true and everyone else is just praying to the wrong God, which is the root of communal hatred. How can we ever achieve a truly peaceful world as long as people can be divided based on religion? How can the dream of the poet who thought of the beautiful idea of “Vasudhev Kutumbakam” - which literally means the world is a family - ever be fulfilled as long as any religion exists?
Every religion teaches us to speak the truth, not steal, help the needy, and live with love - which are the qualities that everyone should have. Then why do people belonging to different religions fight? That’s because every religion has different ideologies, rituals, and God. For example -
Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists believe in the philosophy of rebirth, but Islam and Christianity deny it.
A cow is given the rank of mother in Hinduism, but its sacrifice is a must in Islam.
Eating the flesh of animals is allowed in Islam but forbidden in Hinduism and Sikhism.
You can’t play a band in front of a mosque according to Islam, but it is considered imperative in Hinduism during the Sarasvati procession.
Sikhs believe there is only one God, but Hindus believe in multiple gods.
These are minor differences but big enough to lead to violent communal riots. If religion is the difference between the rituals performed by one community and the other, then there is no need for religion at all.
Just try to imagine a world without any religion and the illusion of God, where everyone is just a human - not Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or Sikh - where everyone has equal rights and equal opportunities, where logic is the basis of everything, where a person with surplus helps the needy not because of the false hopes of one day getting to the heaven but because it’s his duty to help the fellow humans, where no one wishes for the destruction of anybody, where everyone contributes for the progress of humanity and the protection of our planet. I realize that the world would be far better off if there was no religion. I know some of you would argue that having no religion at all would increase sins around us. That’s a valid point to make, especially when you are told your entire life that religion teaches people to stay in harmony with each other, not think bad of others, never steal, help the needy, etc. But the reality paints an opposite picture - instead of making people live in peace, religion has become the source of various communal conflicts. The concept of religion has been around for more than 50,000 years. Can you look into my eyes and tell me that no sin has taken place in the past 50 days, let alone 50,000 years? You can’t. So, this argument that sins would increase in the absence of religion doesn’t carry weight.
Why is it that so many people get offended and turn violent when their religious beliefs are challenged or do not match with that of others? Why are people not so emotionally sensitive when it comes to their differing food and clothing preferences? Have you ever seen two people fighting because one prefers Coke and the other Pepsi? Have you ever seen two people engaging in a conflict because one uses iPhone and the other Android? At most, you may see the two argue with each other, and that’s all. Why is it so? Because when you devote yourself to one religion, you not only subscribe to its beliefs but also make it a part of your identity and become a part of the community that follows the same religion. You start thinking of that community as your family and the collective goal of the community, most of the time, becomes your personal goal. Any threat to that community becomes a threat to your own personal existence. And when someone carries a belief system that is completely different than yours OR says something negative about your religion, it acts as an attack on your self-image, and deep inside it makes you feel that your existence is being threatened. Religious preachers, priests, media, and politicians know this and they have been using religion to create partitions among people to maintain their hegemony. United people are a nightmare for the ruling class because they can overthrow any government, no matter how powerful it is. We saw it during the Russian revolution in 1917 when people from all religions came together to oust Tsar.
Religion is a tool for the indoctrination of the masses. Nothing can explain it better than the colonization of Congo, an African country, by Belgium King Leopold II. He colonized Congo in 1885 and turned the Congolese people into slaves for his own interests. He needed something to convince the Congolese people that it’s good to live in poverty and that they should never revolt against the colonizers. Where else could he look at other than religion, which is the most powerful weapon to make people submissive?
He sent Christian missionaries to Congo whose main goal was going to teach the revelations of Christ in such a way that would serve their interests only. He wrote them a letter in 1883 where he ordered them to use Christianity as a weapon to colonize the Congolese people. He writes:
“Your knowledge of the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your followers to love poverty, like “Happier are the poor because they will inherit the heaven” and, “It’s very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.” You have to detach from them and make them disrespect everything which gives courage to affront us.”
“You must singularly insist on their total submission and obedience, avoid developing the spirit in the schools, teach students to read and not to reason,” he adds.
And thanks to religion, he successfully colonized the African country and brutally killed 10 million Congolese.
Another point worth mentioning is that the people of Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism literally believe that chanting religious mantras daily would eradicate all the problems from their life, make them successful, connect them to God, etc. Let me break your illusions, it is not going to do any of these things. You are just wasting your time and energy. That’s harsh but true.
Your next and probably last question might be if God doesn’t exist, why do people believe in his existence? That’s an easy one to explain. Your belief in God is not your own, it’s what society indoctrinated you into believing in. Your parents, teachers, school textbooks, movies, songs, and religious scriptures remind you regularly how powerful God is, without any evidence, and as a result of the “Illusory Truth Effect” - which says that people can believe anything if you repeat it often enough - people start thinking of God as a reality. As Bhagat Singh said, “Man created God in his imagination when he realized his weakness, limitations, and shortcomings.” Also, the idea of an infinite, supreme being who loves and helps everyone can be helpful to a man in difficult circumstances in his life. It can give you hope in the hopeless world, not to mention that hope is illusionary. A person who lost his entire family can consider God as his father and mother, sister and brother, or friend - which can help him sail through the ocean of life. The idea of God is helpful to a man who lacks bravery and courage and needs support to ride through the painful phases of his life.
But the problem is that this unevidenced belief results in human weakness and stalls human progress, which is too big of a cost. Society must fight against this belief in God as it fought against physical slavery because belief in God, as noted earlier, is mental slavery. We must break the shackles that have enslaved our minds and soul. We must learn to stand on our own feet and take responsibility for our life. We must develop the tenacity to happily face everything that life throws at us, no matter how painful or frightening it may be. We have to realize that we are on our own and no amount of prayers are going to help us, in other words, we have to learn to embrace reality. We have to get back the ability to think rationally and the power of Reason that has been taken away from us by our religious beliefs.
Dear reader, I tried to touch on as many points as possible to explain why I deny the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing God, and why it’s illogical to believe in his existence. If you still think that my decision to become an atheist is a result of my vanity and pride, I proudly stand for it.
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